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This article is about the individual political entities currently or formerly called "United States territories". For the various forms of the jurisdiction of the United States, see United States territory.

Incorporated and unincorporated territories

An incorporated territory of the United States is a specific area under the jurisdiction of the United States, over which the United States Congress has determined that the United States Constitution is to be applied to the territory's local government and inhabitants in its entirety (e.g., citizenship, trial by jury), in the same manner as it applies to the local governments and residents of the U.S. states. Incorporated territories are considered an integral part of the United States, as opposed to being merely possessions.[1]

All territory under the control of the federal government is considered part of the "United States" for purposes of law.[2] From 1901 - 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of opinions known as the Insular Cases held that the Constitution extended ex proprio vigore to the territories. However, the Court in these cases also established the doctrine of territorial incorporation. Under the same, the Constitution only applied fully in incorporated territories such as Alaska and Hawaii, whereas it only applied partially in the new unincorporated territories of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.[3][4]

In the contemporary sense, the term "unincorporated territory" refers primarily to insular areas. There is currently only one incorporated territory, Palmyra Atoll, which is not an organized territory. Conversely, a territory can be organized without being an incorporated territory, a contemporary example being Puerto Rico.

Incorporated unorganized territories

Palmyra Atoll is privately owned by the Nature Conservancy and administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior. It is an archipelago of about 50 small islands about 1.56 square miles (4 km²) in area that lies about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) south of Honolulu. The atoll was acquired by the United States in the 1898 annexation of the Republic of Hawaii. When the Territory of Hawaii was incorporated on April 30, 1900, Palmyra Atoll was incorporated as part of that territory. However, when Hawaii became a state in 1959, Palmyra Atoll was explicitly separated from the state, remaining an incorporated territory but receiving no new organized government.

There are in addition also "territories" that have the status of being incorporated but that are not organized:

Ryukyu Islands (1952–1972): returned to Japanese control, included some other minor islands under the Agreement Between the United States of America and Japan concerning the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands.[5]

Bonin Islands (or Ogasawara Islands) (1945-1968): Returned to Japanese control by mutual agreement.